Equations for Falling Bodies
by PodBayDoors
Summary: Sam returns home from Atlantis for good. Sam & Jack. This fic has every living main character in SG-1 and SGA, but especially Jack. This is the end of the trilogy which includes This is What's Keeping the Stars Apart and Space.
1. Eclipsing Binaries

Stargate SG-1and SGA and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime / Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author.

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Sam returns home from Atlantis for good. Sam & Jack established. I'm pretty sure every living main character and a whole bunch of recurring characters from SGA and SG-1 are in this fic, but there's a lot of Jack. And some real science fiction! This is the end of the 3-part trilogy, which began with "This is What's Keeping the Stars Apart," and "Space."

If you like this **please leave me a review** because I worked really hard on this one and would love the feedback!

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**Eclipsing binaries: **Variable star pairs which undergo periodic changes in intensity, not because the light of the individual components vary, but because each star eclipses the other. 

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"Hello, _Samantha,"_ General Jack O'Neill enthusiastically greeted the CO of the Atlantis expedition right after he stepped out of the event horizon, appearing as if he'd just arrived at his cabin on the lake instead of a city in space. Colonel Samantha Carter awaited his arrival, standing at attention in her dress blues as was her usual practice when meeting her superiors and other VIPs. As soon as she saw Jack saunter in, though, she knew her usual practice was about to change.

"Don't kiss me," she whispered through a fake smile.

He did.

"Jack. I'm in uniform." She thought it highly ironic that she still worried whether people thought she'd gotten this command because she was Jack's wife, when in reality she almost lost it because of that fact.

"That's your problem." She was still _so_ easy to tease.

"I can make it yours," she warned him, "I've got a perfectly good couch for you to sleep on."

"Idle threats." He gave her a smug smile and hugged her shoulders as they turned to walk up the steps to the command center. Sam sighed and thought she probably should just be glad he didn't pat her butt as well.

"I'm on leave, Sam. I'm not here in an official capacity, I'm not going to wear a uniform, and I'm _damn_ well going to kiss my wife whenever I feel like it."

"You're still the General, Jack."

"Not this week."

"If you weren't, you wouldn't be able to vacation on Atlantis." She smiled a little and they stepped into the transporter room. As soon as she programmed their destination Jack dropped his bag, and this time he kissed her as if he hadn't seen her in weeks. Which he hadn't.

"Jack, you're hopeless." Sam said, turning her head to the side and loving every minute of his excessive attention.

"I know." His lips grazed her neck. "Hopeless, entranced, bewitched…" Sam slipped out of his grasp, opened the doors and walked down the hall.

"Mesmerized, enthralled, haunted…" She opened the door to her apartment.

"Enamored, charmed, captivated…" She shoved him through the doorway and shut it behind her.

"Someone's been reading the thesaurus."

"For years," Jack said, looping his arms around her waist. "How else can I beat you?"

"You never beat me."

"Oh." Jack looked into his wife's eyes and wondered again why defending the universe was so damned important that it had to come between him and this woman. "I missed you."

"Me, too," Sam whispered. He pulled her in and brought one hand up to hold her head against his shoulder. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. While she certainly could handle being the CO of Atlantis or walking through the gate into Go'auld territory, there were just times when she wanted to be protected, and not be the protector. Jack gave her that shelter, but she wondered if she ever did the same for him, or whether he just didn't need it. Whatever the answers to those questions, right now she was content to listen to his heart pound and feel the timbre of his voice.

"How many days did you get?" Sam asked.

"Not enough." Feeling her warm breath on his neck, Jack would have been happy to stand there indefinitely, but Sam had different plans.

"I've got to get out of this uniform."

"Great idea."

She shot him a look and he gave her a shrug like they'd done a thousand times before for a hundred different reasons. "I have things that need some attention." Sam reluctantly pulled back and walked toward her bedroom.

"So do _I_." Despite being so cruelly rebuffed, Jack took off his jacket and happily flopped into a chair. Life was being very good to Jack O'Neill, very good indeed. Thanks to George Hammond, he had a week off from protecting the world with nothing to do but pester Sam and see if there were any fish-like creatures in the waters around Atlantis- a perfect seven days and he didn't want to waste a minute of it. Starting now.

He stood and walked over to the bedroom door, watching Sam put on her Atlantis uniform jacket, the left sleeve of which was evading even her lithe and nimble arm. With dark, observant eyes, Jack watched the fabric of her t-shirt stretch taut over the curve of her breast as she leaned back.

"Let me help," he said, and moved over behind her, his voice dropping a note or two deeper. He grasped the collar of the jacket and her right sleeve and pulled it off, laying the jacket on the bureau.

"That's not helping," Sam said softly, as he kissed the back of her neck and wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm helping myself." Jack tugged her t-shirt out of her pants and laid his hands on her bare skin, and Sam sighed at his touch. He crossed his arms and cradled her for a moment, breathing in that sweet, ineffable scent that for years was the only part of her that he was allowed to have- but not anymore. Now she was all his. Jacks hands drifted down, grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and in one easy movement pulled it over her head, tossing it on the jacket. She laid her head back against his shoulder and raised her hand, weaving her fingers into his hair, and then kissed the side of his face, offering him a view that made him go weak in the knees.

Jack kissed her neck and ran his long, capable fingers from her collarbone down between her breasts with excruciating slowness, feeling her heartbeat quicken under his sensitive fingertips. "You're easy, Carter," he teased.

"I suppose so," she sighed, "but only because you're hard."

Surprised by her choice of words, Jack bit down gently on her shoulder and pulled her hips to him, confirming her assumptions. "You've got a mean streak, too." he said between his teeth. He was definitely not used to hearing his wife talk like that. Not that he was complaining.

"I've been thinking about phone sex." Sam whispered. _A lot._

Jack tried hard not to imagine that, but failed miserably. "I'd be interested to hear what comes out of that pretty little mouth of yours." He loosened her pants and they dropped to the floor.

"You should be more interested in what goes into it."

Jack stopped, every circuit on overload. _God, what is she trying to do?_ _Kill me where I stand? _"I think, " he whispered roughly, sliding his fingers beneath her non-standard-issue lace panties, "you ought to be more interested in what goes into this."

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"So tell me about this phone sex thing." Jack asked, running his finger along the damp skin of Sam's bare shoulder, watching her breathing slow down to a normal rate. "I think I'd like it."

Sam smiled and kissed his forehead. "I'm sure you would, but I prefer you in person."

"Are you saying I don't have a way with words?"

"Oh, you do all right." He was the only person Sam knew who could simultaneously mangle individual words while insisting on perfect sentence structure. That is, when he'd say anything at all.

Unfortunately, at this particular point in their lives, words were mostly all they had to go on.

Jack pulled her next to him. "I'm getting better, though."

"Yes, you are. I don't feel as lonely as I used to." Sam nodded in agreement.

He held her tightly. "Good. I couldn't take a replay of last fall. It nearly killed me."

Sam sighed. She had to admit it probably _didn't_ feel really good to have your wife walk out on you and head for a different galaxy, whatever the reason for it. "I didn't understand, Jack. I won't do that again."

"Your track record isn't good."

"That's not fair. You promised."

"Sorry." He actually wasn't sorry, yet, but he was working on it. It had always been dangerously easy for her to break his heart, and unlike the rest of him, it healed very slowly.

"I feel like all the distance is nothing, now. I know better."

_You should always have known. You only had to ask._ Jack sighed He really needed to let that go. "Yeah, I know. I used to wake up in the morning and as soon as I realized who I was- where I was- this foggy_ thing_ would settle in. And now it doesn't. I wake up and I can't say I'm happy, after all, you're not there- but I guess I feel content."

Sam was absolutely certain she'd never heard him say that many words in a row about himself, and remarkably, one of them was even the word "feel." She leaned in and kissed him, slowly and invitingly this time. "You_ are_ getting better. Maybe we should re-think that phone thing."

"Maybe we should re-think that in-person thing." He grabbed her waist and she squeaked in surprise as he hauled her on top of him with a smile.

Later that evening they sat at a table in the mess hall near an open wall and looked out over the ocean, planning the week ahead.

"God, they're just sickeningly cute, aren't they?" McKay sneered, sitting down with his team a few tables away.

Sheppard poked his food with a fork. "Maybe you're just jealous."

"Of course not. I've known them a lot longer than you have, you know."

"You remind us of that fact often, Rodney." Teyla gently teased him. "However, the Colonel does not remember the stories in the same way that you do."

"Well, maybe not." Rodney reddened slightly, "But I knew O'Neill had the hots for her ever since I first went to the SGC."

"Now that's called 'projecting'." Sheppard informed him. McKay glared back.

Ronan contemplated Sam and Jack. "I bet they weren't discussing strategy this afternoon." He paused. "Damn."

Rodney snorted. "I just remember them being more discreet."

"Rodney, they're _sitting at a __table." _Sheppard pointed out.

Ronan sighed. "Damn."

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The shrill crescendo of attack alarms brought a sleeping Atlantis to its feet. "Whoa, Sam, what's up?" Jack was already halfway dressed before he was fully awake, buckling his sidearm holster before his shirt was even on.

Sam's mind filed that vision of him away for future action as she put on her headset. "What is it?" She paused and listened in vain. "Radek- speak English!"

"A nova? That star wasn't supposed to…." Sam paused. "I'll be right down."

Sam stood up. "There is a binary star not too far away that went supernova. We thought it wouldn't happen for a years, maybe even decades." Sam swiftly put on her clothes. Jack noticed the t-shirt was inside out but figured the jacket would cover it up.

"Didn't they check out the neighborhood before moving in?" He slipped into his shirt as they went out the door.

"There weren't any other vacancies, Jack."

Sam arrived at the command center to find it swarming with scientists and technicians, and she immediately shut down the alarm. Jack wisely retreated to her office, knowing there wasn't anything he could do but fairly unconcerned given the wattage of brainpower that was humming out there. He wandered over to the shelves and looked at her collection of artifacts- most were from Daniel, some he knew she'd found on her own. Then he picked up the photos. Jacob. Cassie. Teal'c. Daniel. Sam and him on the dock, fishing. Jack smiled. She was still too private a person to put their wedding photo here- this one was as close as it got, but they meant the same thing to her. In fact, he suspected that this one meant more.

It was also true, what she'd said to him in anger several months earlier. It took a very long time to get into her gallery. There were pictures he would have expected to be here, but weren't.

There was a rap at the door, "General, Colonel Carter needs to speak with you, sir." Jack set the photo down, puzzled, and followed the young woman out the door.

"Colonel?"

"General, where are the ships right now?" Sam paused, "I mean, how long until they could get here?"

"The Odyssey is still being analyzed and retro-fitted, the Daedalus is on the other side of the Milky Way, but the Apollo is around." Jack wondered what ships could have to do with a supernova.

Sam's face grew pensive and the murmuring group around her fell silent. "Define 'around', sir."

"Less than a day. You want me to call them and find out?"

"Yes." Sam turned, "Chuck, open a line to the Apollo."

"Uh, Sam," Jack asked, "What am I calling them about?"

"An evacuation."

"_What_?"

"The star that went supernovae was a class Ia binary star. Our calculations were that the white dwarf wouldn't accumulate enough new matter to collapse for quite some time, but the light curve data we got over the last twenty-four hours project…"

"Carter!"

"It blew up. We need to get out."

"The shields won't hold?"

"They might, but the force is so strong and diffuse, that even if they hold, it could blow us out of the water." McKay explained. "Literally. The entire city could roll around like a beach ball."

Jack grimaced at the image. "Thanks, McKay."

"I just hope it doesn't tear off the atmosphere."

"We get it, Rodney." Sheppard said, exasperated.

"But the gamma ray levels are already high enough to put up the shields…"

"Sir, I've got the _Apollo._" Chuck looked up.

Colonel Ellis's face appeared on the monitor. "General, what brings you to Pegasus?"

"Well, I was here just to check out," he glanced at Sam, "the damn place and now Carter's put me back to work."

Ellis smiled. The best not-kept secret in the galaxy. "Okay. Well what do you need from the Apollo, sir?"

"You have to come back, Ellis. We need a ride." Jack nodded at Sam to step up to the console.

"Abe, we're going to be hit by a debris shock wave from a supernova. It's already exploded. I think we have about five hours. Once you pick us up, you can easily out-fly the shockwave, even on sublight engines."

"What about using the bridge?"

"The wave will soon have crossed over the nearest bridge gate. I can't risk sending anyone through it, or to any other gate."

"General." Ellis said, putting on his best poker face, "Colonel. We can't get everyone on one ship."

"We know." Sam and Jack answered him with one voice.

Jack met Sam out on the balcony. The sky was unusually clear, punctuated by a single star almost bright enough to cast its own shadows.

"It's pretty, even if it's going to blow this place to pieces," he said, putting both hands on the railing.

"I don't think it'll destroy Atlantis, just everything that's not nailed down. The land will be devastated."

"Maybe it'll get rid of the snakes." Jack studied it for a few moments. "It's not one star."

"No."

"It's two." He put his arm around Sam and pulled her next to him.

"Yes. They just dance around each other until one day the attraction is too great. And then they explode." She laid her head on his shoulder. The breeze drifted inland, brushing away the frantic sounds rattling out from inside the city.

"I'm not going, Jack."

"Yes, you are." he replied, steeling himself against what was coming next.

"No. I refuse!" Sam spun around. "This is _my_ command, dammit! These people are getting out of here before me, Jack. And I'll stay with those who are left." Sam swallowed hard. "Jack, they all _volunteered._"

Jack grabbed her other shoulder and held her tightly in front of him, staring into her angry blue eyes. "No, Sam. It's an order. You're too valuable to the Air Force. Not to mention how valuable you are to me."

"How dare you pull rank on me?" Sam tried to keep a cool head. "Who's going to help these people? We don't know how many will survive- maybe quite a few."

"Maybe none." Jack pointed out tersely.

"Maybe none." Sam said quietly. "But I'm staying in case there _are_ quite a few. They'll need help."

"They'll have help, just not you." Jack let go of her shoulders. "I'm relieving you of duty, Colonel."

John appeared at the doorway. "They're boarding, General."

"Jack." Sam's eyes were wide. "You can't…"

"I can. And you can't get in touch with Moseley to override my decision. The gates are out."

"What about all that "value to the Air Force" stuff you just said?" Sam bit her lower lip to keep it from quivering. "You're a general, General."

"Oh well." He smiled at her, and caressed her face with his hand, wiping the tears from beneath her eyes. "Sheppard, take her on the ship with you."

Sheppard started to protest. "I'm not going…"

"If I have to handcuff you two together, I will. Is that understood?" Jack's voice was clear and hard as ice. "Now go get your asses on that ship and come back in a couple of hours."

Sam stood rooted to the floor of the balcony. Finally Jack put his arms around her and buried his face in her hair as John walked back into the building.

"Colonel. Plan B." Jack whispered. "Go."

Sam's eyes flew open wide. He couldn't _possibly_ be recalling the only other time he'd made her leave him, more than ten years earlier, could he? He'd been nearly dead. But it didn't matter, because she felt the same now as she did then. "No, sir."

But Jack did remember. He remembered being stuck in that godforsaken frozen pit like it was yesterday, and thought the memory would remind her, too. Remind her how they started out as a lonely colonel and an insecure captain, and the tiny silken steel threads that wove them into who they were. "Follow my order, Sam. Please."

Ten years of combat duty didn't make it any easier to do as he asked, because she respected him then- but loved him now. Sam struggled to control her emotions. Finally she stepped away from him."Yes, sir." The reflected light of the supernova glittered in her eyes.

"Yes, Jack." She kissed him gently on the side of his face, then Sam walked over to where Sheppard stood, and they dialed the transporter to take them to the pier.

Jack walked into the command center, where the remaining technicians, scientists and soldiers stood, among them McKay and Ronan. "All right, people," he clapped his hands, "Let's get some nails."


	2. Impact Deformation

**Impact Deformation: **Change caused by the conversion of the kinetic energy of a moving body into a distortion of material and loss of energy into heat following collision with another body.

* * *

"How far out do we need to be to escape the wave, Sam?" Colonel Ellis asked as the _Apollo_ lifted off from the Lantean piers. 

"Well, we can't really escape it- it's like ripples on a pond- it'll go on for a few hundred years. We just need to get to where it's very weak." Sam thought if she just stayed focused on the interesting physics of the situation, she could avoid becoming physically ill.

"Uh huh. Ripples on a pond." Ellis smiled wryly.

_Keep talking, Sam. Do your job. _"McKay calculated a half-hour in hyperspace, then come back. If we're in hyperspace when it goes by, it won't matter, and we'll be far enough out if it hits when we turn around."

"Will do." Ellis turned to his right. "Activate hyperdrive, Major."

After a tense, mostly wordless hour, the Apollo was back in orbit around M12-578.

"Atlantis, this is Colonel Ellis aboard the Apollo. Do you read?"

The tiny delay in transmission seemed eternal.

"Yes, Abe. We hear you." Jack's voice echoed through the bridge. "We're okay."

The bridge erupted in cheers and Sam sat back in her seat. "How'd you do it?"

"I hate to tell you this, Sam, but McKay can jerry-rig crap almost as well as you can." Jack smiled with a grin meant only for her. "You know the last moments of the _Titanic_- ah- where the walls are floors kinda thing? We have a lot of broken stuff, but only a few casualties with no deaths. So get down here and help clean up this mess."

The Apollo landed at the pier and the denizens of Atlantis streamed off, still in a daze over what had transpired in just under six hours. Sam thanked the crew of the Apollo for once again bailing them out.

"You've got to stop this, Sam. I can't get a damn thing done." Ellis cautioned her, smiling.

"Sorry. Do you want to come onshore for a break?"

Abe smiled slyly at her. "No, I think you've got better things to do than entertain a ship's crew. And I don't just mean fixing up Atlantis."

Sam smiled and walked out into the bright morning sunshine, to find Jack waiting at the edge of the pier. "You just had to be the last one out, didn't you?" He hugged her, and could feel the tension lingering in her body. He had a little flash of regret at what he'd done, but decided he'd do it again if he had to. She'd forgive him. In fact, getting her to forgive him sometimes led to the best…

"Jack, you're lucky I don't report you." She interrupted his daydream, which was just as well considering they were on a pier in broad daylight right beside the _Apollo._

"Go ahead. Maybe they'll fire me." He held her back and looked at her, a tiny smile playing at the edge of his lips.

"What if you had died? How would I explain that?" Sam pouted. She wasn't going to hold out a lot longer with that smirk on his face, though.

"_That's_ what you'd be worried about?" Jack clutched his chest. "Ouch Carter, that hurts."

Sam finally relented, smiling at him. "Damn you, stop it." She looked up to see a throng of scientists and engineers surging toward them, led by a chattering Rodney McKay.

"Sam, we've got six weak spots in the shield I'm concerned about…"

"Several buildings have serious structural damage." Zelenka chimed in.

Another engineer was about to speak when Sam waved them off. "Sorry guys, take it to the General. I'm not in charge, here." She walked off as Jack was mobbed by his least-favorite species of Air Force personnel- and she just couldn't resist glancing back.

The look on Jack's face was priceless. "Carter. Hey, Colonel," Jack tried to move forward, but couldn't. There was sheer desperation in his voice. "About that command? You can have it back. Right now."

Sam kept walking. It wasn't much of a payback, but it made her feel a little better. She smiled.

"CARTER!" There was complete silence.

"Yes, sir?" Sam turned, suppressing her amusement.

"You're in charge of Atlantis." He was grinning._You're good. You're so damn good._

"Thank you, sir." _I learned from the best._ She fielded a couple of urgent questions and established a time for a formal damage assessment meeting later that day. Jack waited patiently, looking over the railings, a little annoyed that there were no pebbles or sticks to toss into the water. It wasn't right.

"I'm sorry Jack. It always seems like something comes up, doesn't it?" Sam said wistfully, as they headed toward the entrance, the 304 lifting off behind them.

Jack opened the door for her, but wasn't able to answer her question before an odd sound caused him to look up. He pushed her inside and gave her one last order.

"GO!"

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What Jack had seen was the top of one of the buildings separating along a jagged crack created by the lurching of the city during the shockwave. Though the _Apollo_'s engines weren't producing much thrust, the sheer volume of air displaced by its moving bulk had created enough turbulence to be the last straw for the shattered, tired building.

The city had shields, but none to protect it from itself. The top of the tower smashed down onto one of the lower arms of Atlantis and skidded, the point at its apex slashing like a scimitar through the walls, knocking Sam into Jack and both of them onto the floor.

Again, alarms pierced the peacefulness of the city and the lights flickered momentarily. Jack crawled over to Sam, who lay on her side, curled up. "Sam?" He lifted his hands to roll her over, and they were already covered with blood- but he wasn't hurt._What the hell?_

With relief, he saw that she was breathing and her eyes were open. "Are you all right?" He couldn't see very well, it was always so goddamned _dark_ in Atlantis.

"It got me good, Jack." Sam 's voice was thick with pain.

Jack carefully ran his eyes over her and was suddenly overcome with the sickening realization that his beautiful, capable wife, the CO of Atlantis and world-class genius, had been carelessly torn and tossed aside like a paper doll.

_You're one of this country's national resources. If not national treasures._

He ripped off his jacket and tied it around her as tightly as he could, but it didn't seem to help, turning from brown to black in seconds. Jack found her headset and gently but quickly removed it, hearing strained voices paging for medics as he leaned over and settled it in his ear. "Colonel Carter's down, we need medics _now_!"

_We're talking about Carter, here._

An affirmative reply answered back.

"No, Jack." Sam said weakly. "Someone else needs them more."

Jack either didn't hear her or he didn't want to understand what she was trying to say. "No, Sam. They're coming, hang on." She had survived injuries before. She could survive this one, too.

_You did it Sam, you won. You hung in there and you beat it._

"Jack," Sam looked into his eyes. She felt a driving need to memorize every line, every scar, even the shape of his lips. She put her fingers up to his face. "I only want you here."

"_No_!" He stared at her with a wild fear that even in its strangeness somehow seemed vaguely familiar. Sam held his gaze and smiled sadly, running her fingers slowly through his hair. There was so much she wanted to tell him but the thoughts wouldn't form, wouldn't make it to her lips, and it was getting so very dark.

_I was shouting for you to hear._

With panicked breaths Jack cradled her head in his sticky hands. "Does it hurt?"

"I'm cold."

Jack leaned over her and shut his eyes. He could feel her slight breaths and hammering pulse, but the air around them was filled with the steely smell he'd become so used to over the years that he sensed it even in his nightmares. He dropped his head to hers and kissed her gently. "Please Sam, stay with me."

"Always." Sam murmured back. "Thank you, Jack."

_For what? For nothing. I've got plenty of that._

Jack kept his forehead on hers, the world spinning out of control except for that touch of her skin on his. He watched as his hand slowly came up to her neck and fingers pushed down on her skin with a gentle caress. Only, he was certain they weren't his fingers because if they had been, they'd have found what they were searching for.

_There are two of us. If only._

_---------------------------------------------------------------- _

"General, it's time to go." Teyla said gently, her arm around Jack's shoulders. He didn't answer her and he didn't move. McKay, Keller and the medics stood behind them near a gurney and crash cart with its drawers in total disarray, everyone unable to process what had just transpired.

"Sir, you don't want to leave her here like this." Sheppard looked uncertainly at Teyla, who nodded. He stepped carefully around to the opposite side, knelt down and put one of Jack's arms around his shoulders. John and Teyla started to get Jack on his feet, and with his other hand, John gently eased Sam's head to the floor. But Jack wouldn't go. He reached down and brushed her hair one more time.

Teyla put her hand on his face and turned it to her. "General- Jack- Your paths _will_ cross again." She had seen much grief and death in her life, but Jack's eyes scared her- it was as if Sam had taken him with her when she died. He gave no indication that he'd heard anything she said, but he finally stood and nodded.

Jack turned to Dr. Keller. "Her shirt- it's inside out."

The doctor ducked her eyes. "I'll fix it, General."

As Sheppard escorted Jack down the hall, McKay grabbed Teyla and turned her to him. "Stop it with that spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Carter was the finest scientific mind in two galaxies and it would piss her off to no end to think that…" He struggled. "I'll be damned if I'll let you…" He stared at Teyla in helpless silence, and for the first time anyone could recall, words actually failed Rodney McKay. Teyla hugged him as he broke down, while Dr. Keller and the medics quietly attended to what used to be Sam Carter.

John and Jack stood in front of Sam's quarters. "General, why don't we run you by the infirmary?"

"There's nothing wrong with me." Jack took a deep breath and looked John in the eye. "You're in command here now. Go see to your people. Get McKay on the gates."

John nodded and turned away. He'd never seen such dedication to duty, and he wasn't sure that was something to which he really wanted to aspire. _Damn. How can he think of Atlantis right now? _He walked slowly to the transporter, wondering if they'd run afoul of some kind of Ancient curse that hung in the air and lay coiled up in the walls of Atlantis. A million-year-old curse a hundred times worse than King Tut's that warned all humans not to tamper with things they didn't understand.

Jack entered the apartment and left the lights off. Bright morning light streamed in through the tall windows, but he avoided looking out at any of the buildings, unsure where the crumbled one might be. He knew it was out there though, because he could feel it, taunting and accusatory. Jack went to the sink and washed his hands but knew he'd never get rid of the blood.

It would have been such an easy thing to do, he thought. One phone call that she would never have known about, and she could have gone back to Area 51 to put in her years until Landry retired. She'd have been safe if hadn't used her like a chess piece- _Let's see, Colonel Reynolds goes here, General Landry here, Colonel Carter here, and Daniel Jackson right here. There's no substitute for winning._

The fact that Sam had requested the command and was clearly thriving in the position didn't even register in Jack's mind. Her death was a direct result of his decision and that was all he needed to know. It didn't matter why he'd made the decision, only that he had.

Jack didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until a rap at the half-open front door awakened him. "Jack? It's us. Daniel and Teal'c." The lights flashed on.

"Dammit, Daniel." Jack covered his eyes and sat up.

"God, Jack." Daniel stood helplessly in the middle of the room. There was nothing to say, nothing to bridge the chasm of pain that threatened to swallow all three of them.

"You didn't have to come. She'll be just as dead when I bring her home."

"It's not your fault."

Teal'c watched his two friends for a moment, and then moved over to Jack's suitcase that lay open on a table.

"Like hell." Jack looked up into his friend's distraught face. "You tried to _protect_ your wife. I sent mine into the middle of a goddamned hostile galaxy." Jack laughed mirthlessly. "I told her, 'You're exactly what the IOA wants.'"

"Jack, she wanted to go. You've both always done what you had to do."

"I'll put that on her tombstone, okay? 'We did what we had to do.'"

"I cared about her, too, Jack." Daniel stared at him. "In fact, I'd let you put a bullet through my head right now if I thought I could find her- but I can't." He started to pace the floor, running his fingers through his hair in absent-minded desperation. "I can't go back again. I should have taken us all back to Keb and we could have learned while we had the chance."

"There was nothing left at Keb, Daniel." Jack sighed wearily and put his head in his hands. "We didn't even know what it meant at the time."

"We weren't sure. I assumed Oma would always be there." Daniel stopped moving and stared at Jack. "I should have made us go back while _we __had the fucking chance."_

Jack was dimly aware that he'd never heard the genteel triple-PhD-holder use words like that before. "Daniel…"

"Cease this conversation!" Teal'c's anguished voiced rumbled through the room. "We will remember Colonel Carter with fondness and appreciate her life for its many incredible contributions. You will speak no further of these things. I will not hear of it."

Daniel and Jack stared at him, and it finally hit them that he'd known her for fifty years longer than they. He held out clean clothing. "O'Neill, I will help you with your change of attire. Daniel Jackson, you will arrange for a meal to be sent here." Jack and Daniel obeyed without another word.

After a supper that went untouched, Jack turned to Daniel, who was sitting beside Jack on the couch, holding a small stone carving Daniel had given her. "What you said about ascending- do you think it could have happened?" Jack felt as if his very soul hung on Daniel's reply.

"What did you see?" Teal'c inquired gently. Jack shook his head.

"Humans need help to ascend, Jack. There's no one to help her." Daniel kept his eyes on the figurine and off of his friend's face.

"Oma?"

"No," Daniel shook his head. "She- I know she's gone. Well, not gone, but not able to help. Plus, there's not usually any…" he paused, finally looking carefully at Jack.. "There should be nothing left."

"There isn't." Jack replied stonily. He sighed and closed his eyes briefly as his last tiny flame of hope flickered out. Jack had always thought Sam helped him fill in the black recesses of his soul- but really she was the light holding the darkness at bay- and now it was all going to swallow him up, faster than ever this time. In a way it was comforting to know there was no point in resisting, no reason to fight anymore- and giving up was seductively effortless. One step and he could fall right out through his empty heart and into space.

He took yet another drink of scotch and water. Daniel evaluated him with concern, and glanced up at Teal'c, their eyes meeting in an unspoken agreement that Jack was not to be left alone until they were sure. Daniel already knew Teal'c had taken Jack's AF-issued sidearm when Teal'c went through his suitcase, but there were a lot more where that one came from, Daniel knew. In some ways, Sam had been safer in the Pegasus Galaxy than Jack was in Washington- and Jack was always prepared.

Teal'c got Jack into bed, and Daniel took the couch, as there was no question Teal'c wouldn't fit. He lay motionless on the hard floor and looked straight up at the ceiling. _I remember your eightieth birthday. I held you while you cried because you realized you would die without seeing O'Neill again. I did not think I would have to do the same thing for O'Neill._ He stayed awake all night in case he might be of assistance, listening for Daniel and Jack, and realized that he, the long-lived Jaffa, would most likely encounter this heart wrenching situation at least twice more before he died.

In the morning, the three men met John's team at the gate.

"General." Sheppard saluted, dressed in the blues he never wore.

"Sheppard."

"I can't come with you. I wish I could." John swallowed hard. "I'm sorry- there's a lot of damage and a lot of casualties."

"There are." Jack looked at him, expressionless.

John was sure Jack could see right through him. John had two commanders die on his watch. One he could attribute to bad luck or chance, but _two- _that was incompetence. Some head of security he was- but, by God, O'Neill would have to have him dishonorably discharged before he left this place. He stood stiffly, waiting to hear whom his replacement would be.

"You'll take care of it, Sheppard. If you need anything, let us know."

John could barely contain his shock. "Yes sir." He wondered if anyone really knew Jack O'Neill, and then it occurred to him that the only person who probably did lay dead in the casevac pod a few feet away.

McKay stepped up. "I'm coming."

"There's nothing Radek can't handle." John added, trying to reassure Jack that he did indeed have a handle on the situation.

"I wouldn't give a damn if he couldn't." McKay glanced at John. "You can survive without me for a while."

Jack nodded, and the four men went over to the pod. Daniel couldn't look at it, finally forcing himself to locate just the handle, and then he slipped his hand through and looked ahead.

Jack bent over to grab a handle and as he did so, caught sight of Teyla standing much further back, against the curtain of glass. She nodded once, slowly, as if she knew something he should know as well. Jack tried to understand but the thought seemed just out of reach, and then it slipped away entirely. He focused his vision on the stars as they fell down the side of the box and led him to the handle just below the edge of the flag.

"Okay". They stood up. Two hundred people stood at attention, half of them in salute, as Colonel Samantha Carter O'Neill was carried home.


	3. Gravitational Collapse

**Gravitational collapse:** The inward fall of a body under the influence of the force of gravity. It occurs when all other forces fail to supply a sufficiently high counterbalancing pressure. Gravitational collapse is at the heart of structure formation in the universe.

* * *

The cortege stepped through the event horizon to a much smaller contingent of mourners, as Landry had wisely sent all non-essential personnel home. Mark Carter, Cassie, Vala, Cam, Barrett and Hammond were the only ones to greet the four men as they set the container down on a cart at the foot of the ramp. As far as technical staff, only Harriman and Siler stood in the control room, silent and motionless. 

Cassie, tears trailing down her face, drifted to the head of the container and gently touched it. "Sam." She had now lost three mothers, and right then and there Cassie vowed she would never put a child through that. Since she clearly couldn't promise not to die, she would simply not have a child. That much she could control.

Sam had insisted that Cassie never be told she was going to live to be at least seventy-five.

"Open it. I want to see her." Mark demanded, taking Cassie in his arms as she stood and buried her face in his shirt.

Hammond touched his arm. "Mark, I don't know, son."

"I think it's all right." McKay said. He knew, he knew more than he would ever tell. He glanced up at Jack.

Jack nodded.

Rodney folded back the flag, unlatched the faceplate and lifted it open. Sam was beautiful, almost ethereal, her blonde hair shining and her skin translucent. Mark let go of Cassie and reached down to touch Sam's face, sobbing. He couldn't understand why his little sister had to live the life she did. She and Jacob- they were so alike, comets leaving the dust of broken hearts trailing behind them on their way into space.

George stood woodenly beside him, remembering when the two of them were just little spitfires playing with his kids on the base playground, and how Sam was always the one who wanted to jump out of the swing at the end of the arc no matter how high it was, squealing against the blue sky with her hair backlit by the sun.

Malcolm quietly approached as well, but none of the other mourners noticed as the expression on his face slowly transformed from anguish to anger and finally to determined hate as he tapped Jack's shoulder and waited for him to turn.

"You selfish sonofabitch." Malcolm growled, his fist connecting with Jack's jaw, sending him reeling into Teal'c.

"Barrett!" Cam and Daniel lunged to restrain him, while Jack steadied himself, staring at Malcolm. It occurred to Vala that he and Jack were probably both armed to the teeth, and she ducked.

Malcolm decided not to take another swing, but it wasn't because Daniel and Cam had his arms pinned behind his back. He simply realized he should never have been able to connect with the first one because Jack's training shouldn't have let him. By all rights, Malcolm should have been flat on the floor, if not worse. The look in Jack's eyes told Malcolm everything he needed to know. No one in that room had had ever seen Jack O'Neill look that way before- defeated, apathetic and exhausted.

"Go ahead, Barrett, do it again." It was a request, not a dare. "I'm sure Mark would love to, but he's busy giving a damn."

"You sent her out there." Barrett angrily shook his arms free from his captors, his face flamed with emotion.

"She wanted to go."

"You killed her, Jack."

"People, that's _enough."_ Hammond barked out. Daniel thought he sounded just like he did when the four of them would squabble in the briefing room over some minor detail. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, the absurdity of the whole situation- and that's when he knew he was simply losing his mind. He walked out of the room and straight to his lab where death was just an interesting historical event to be studied, catalouged and carefully filed away.

Jack went over to Mark and looked into his grief-stricken face. "I'm sorry, Mark."

"It's not your fault. She loved you. I don't know why, but she did." He smiled weakly, straightening up. "It must have been that father-figure thing."

Jack almost smiled. He'd heard that joke before.

"Jacob loved you, too. I never told you that. I was standing right here after Jacob's funeral when I looked up and saw you and Sam in the briefing room."

Jack nodded.

"His last request was for me to make sure you two got together."

"You did."

"Yeah." Mark watched as four airmen entered the room to take the pod.

"Mark, I want her funeral to be like Jacob's."

"I thought that, too."

Jack thought it was just another sign of his totally screwed up life that the best part of it should begin and end in this very room, with a funeral. The airmen bent to pick up the box. "No," he choked. "Wait." They stood aside as he stooped down and put his face against hers. His shoulders started to shake, and one by one everyone left the room feeling a bit self-centered, their grief relatively minor in comparison to the pure, raw pain they saw there at the foot of the stargate.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel picked up an empty bottle and some newspapers from the floor of Jack's living room. He sighed, noting that Jack had switched from coffee and beer to scotch, sometimes with and sometimes without, and definitely not the good stuff. He'd been ordered to see Dr. Lam, but no one could make him follow her orders, and he sure wasn't doing it.

The doorbell rang and Daniel put the mess in a trashcan on the way to the door. He opened it and saw a small, thin woman he'd never met before.

"Hello?" The woman looked to be about Jack's age, and familiar.

"Hi."

"You're Sara." The picture. Daniel remembered now.

"Yeah, uh…" she shifted nervously.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sorry to be so rude. My name is Daniel Jackson." He opened the door. "Come in, please."

Sara shook his hand. "Jack told me about you." She stepped into the hallway. "Do you know how incredibly hard it was to find this house? Were you all in the same kind of classified stuff together?"

Daniel nodded. "Yes. Deep Space Telemetry."

Sara smiled. "Yeah. Right." She paused, remembering how hard it was not to know. On the other hand, maybe that had been for the best. "We haven't spoken in a long time, but he had nice things so say about you. All of you."

They walked into the living room and sat down. "Jack's asleep."

"That's okay. I just wanted to drop by to be sure someone was here with him for a while. When Charlie died, he just crawled into himself and it almost killed him."

Daniel wondered if she knew how literally true her statement was.

Sara's eyes suddenly settled on a picture on the mantel. "God…" she walked over to it and picked it up. "Why is this here?"

"She wanted me to bring it."

Sara looked up and saw Jack standing in the doorway.

"She gave me strict orders that it was for happy memories only."

Sara put the picture of herself and Charlie back on the mantle. "Hello, Jack."

"Sara." He walked out into the living room.

Daniel picked up some more odds and ends off the chairs to make room for their guest and to get himself out of the way. "I need to empty this trash can. Back in a bit." He slipped out of the kitchen and down the hall.

"I'm sorry, Jack."

"Me, too."

She recognized that look on his face and her heart ached for him, and so she hugged him, noticing at once how much thinner he was. "I wish I knew what to say."

"There's nothing to say, Sara." Jack sighed. He tried hard not to wish she'd never come, but the "happy memories only" clause really wasn't working for him this time.

Sara stepped back. "There is, Jack. She was a terrific person. I never even met her but everyone said so. When I heard that you'd remarried I knew you'd turned the corner in here," she tapped his chest, "and I knew she'd have to be a hell of a woman to do that."

"What's your point, Sara?" Jack sat down and rubbed his temples with his hands.

"The point is, don't let all of her hard work be for nothing, okay?" She smiled sadly, touched his shoulder and let herself out the front door.

Jack sat back in the chair. Sara didn't understand. This was just like Charlie- except instead of handing him a loaded gun, he handed her a loaded galaxy. Jack wasn't sure why other people always paid for his mistakes.

He heard the door to the garage shut as Daniel came back inside. "That was nice of her to come by. Remember when you said I'd never get to meet her?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, but you thought I was an ass that day anyway."

"You were."

"It was an act, Daniel."

Daniel smiled. "Sam believed you."

"She had more of a reason to believe I was an ass than all of you put together."

"Yeah. That's when we knew she'd fallen for you. I mean, how does it feel to have someone build a particle beam for you, Jack? I can't even get a woman to give me a tie."

"You don't wear a tie."

"You're not answering the question."

Jack was silent. "She was more than I ever deserved."

"It's not about deserving Sam. It's about being grateful for her."

Jack sighed. He'd thought that before, too, when he'd come home from his first trip to Atlantis and watched the snow fall outside his office window. How he should just accept his good luck at having her for his wife, and not question how it was that he, Jack O'Neill, should deserve her after all the crappy things he'd done in his life. Well, now he knew better. There _was_ such a thing as cosmic retribution, after all. Fate kept score.

"Daniel, I'm going back to Washington tomorrow. I quit."

"You can't quit. Who's going to take your place?"

"You were always on me to retire."

"You know why."

"So?" Jack went into the kitchen and got a glass and water. Daniel sadly realized that things had deteriorated to the point that he could judge what kind of a day Jack was having by how much water he put in his booze. "I can be alone and bitter instead of waiting for my adoring wife to come home from fighting the Wraith." Jack filled his glass the rest of the way up with Johnnie Walker Red.

"When are you coming back?" Daniel sat back on the couch in frustration. If anything, Jack's depression was getting worse instead of better in the month since Sam's death.

"I'm not married to _you._" Jack knocked back the entire glass. He looked at it as if he could see the future in it. "Then again, I'm not really married to anyone, am I?"

Daniel winced at the sound of the glass shattering against the floor and wondered if this behavior counted as being, "A danger to himself or others," because that's what Dr. McKenzie said it took to get an adult locked up against his will.

Jack had been around that barbeque before, however. He'd learned a long time ago that one never told a shrink the truth if one wanted to keep the job, especially the jobs Jack had. No doctor-patient privilege in the Air Force. The suicide contract was especially amusing. _Yeah, I promise to call you of all people if I decide to blow my brains out. Where's the logic in that?_ This massive conspiracy of denial explained why the types of positions Jack had held in the past were always filled with members of- what had Sam said? "The lunatic fringe."

Jack smiled. He remembered two other things from the day she said that- first, he vowed never to let her set foot on that dark road he'd wandered down on occasion, and which had led Jonas right off the edge; and her ass looked really nice in those black BDUs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"George, how have you been holding down the fort- or shall I say shoveling through the piles?" Landry said, striding into Jack's office where Hammond was trying to rein in the chaos until Jack got back.

"I think he learned his filing system from Daniel." Hammond sighed.

"That's being generous." Landry sat down across from Jack's desk. "Did you know I started out signing off on _his_ mission reports from when he was on SG-1?"

"Well, when he gets back from his fishing trip he can straighten out this mess."

"You mean _my _mess, now." Hank sighed. "And I love Washington about as much as Jack does. Hell, they wouldn't even let me _park_ without a permit, but some lunatic made it past security and blew himself away in the lobby."

"Hank, what are you talking about?" George looked at him with sudden concern, and not because of the dead lunatic. "He phoned yesterday, said he was coming in from Minnesota and would be back at work today." Hammond hit the intercom. "Jim, when's General O'Neill showing up today?"

"He- uh- well you know General O' Neill, sir." Jim's voice hesitated. "He still runs on Mountain Time."

"George, he said he's retiring. That's why I'm here." Landry's expression changed from puzzlement to concern.

"I told Jack I wouldn't hear of it, that I'd stay as long as it took to get him back on his feet." Hammond paused. "He said he wouldn't bother me again about it."

"Damn it, George, he pulled a fast one on us." Landry said, scooting forward in his comfortable leather chair, clutching the armrest. "He _isn't_ going to bother you again about it."

Hammond stood up so quickly his chair hit the shelves behind the desk as he grabbed the phone. "I need General Moseley, right now. I don't give a damn, tell him President Hayes will understand."

Jack sat on the deck of his cabin with his long legs propped on the railing, watching the sun slant through the trees, the random evening light flickering across the pond. The eerie, ancient call of a loon echoed across the water, answered by its mate much further away. Sam and Jack often entertained themselves on beautiful evenings just like this by watching to see how far away the birds would come up from where they dipped under the water. It always amazed city-girl Sam how long they could stay down until they bobbed up again, melting the glassy water. Over and over, under and up, each always knowing where the other was.

But Jack just couldn't come up this time. He'd been down too long and there wasn't any reason to surface, anymore. He was just drifting without the strength or even desire to come up for air.

Jack figured that he'd screwed up plenty of things in his life, but this one was irredeemable. There was no fixing the fact that Sam was dead and that she wouldn't be if he'd just stayed away from her. By all rights, she should have hooked up with some high-end guy like Barrett and had a whole bunch of blue-eyed genius kids. But no, he couldn't leave her alone, though God knows, he tried.

_That's a lie. You didn't try. Not hard enough._

And that was true. Jack thought Barrett didn't know how right he was to call him a selfish sonofabitch- and how far back that selfishness went. If he'd really cared about Sam he would have transferred her out of his command the day he put into words what he'd felt for so long, but he couldn't. Not because she was the most brilliant scientist and capable soldier he'd had, or because the other team leaders couldn't watch out for her like he could (well, maybe that part _was_ true), but mostly because he couldn't live without her. Jack thought back over all those years he couldn't have her but he couldn't leave her, and he royally fucked up both their lives because of that fact. He was in charge, he could have done it- and she would have hated it, possibly even hated him, but she'd have been better off. He denied her the life she should have had. Literally.

He'd loved her to death.

The weight of the Springfield felt reassuring and promising in his hand. A trigger safety and no time for second thoughts, not that he had any.

"You don't want to do that." Jack startled as a familiar voice shattered the darkness in his head.


	4. Quantum Suicide

**Quantum Suicide: **A thought experiment in which a physicist sits in front of a gun.  
With each run of the experiment there is a 50-50 chance that the gun will be triggered and physicist will be split into one world in which he lives and another world in which he dies. After many runs of the experiment, there will be many worlds. In the worlds where the physicist dies, he will cease to exist.  
**Quantum immortality**  
The idea behind quantum immortality is that the physicist will remain alive in, and thus remain able to experience, at least one of the universes in this set, even though these universes form a tiny subset of all possible universes. Over time the physicist would therefore never perceive his or her own death.

* * *

Jack froze, his hand on the grip. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Sam walk up and lean back on the railing, her hands in her jacket pockets. Too little food, no sleep and way too much alcohol pretty much guaranteed that this was a hallucination- or maybe he'd already pulled the trigger. 

Except he knew he wasn't going to heaven, so _that_ couldn't be it.

She smiled at him. Jack really didn't care if she was a mirage- he was willing to play along for as long as it lasted. Sam was wearing an old outfit but one he remembered well because it was the one she'd worn to his house after his head was crammed full of Ancient knowledge for the second time- a denim jacket, some kind of girly blouse and a skirt. That memory of her and what he knew she'd been trying to tell him that day had sustained him through some pretty rough patches, so he guessed if he could dress her any way he wanted, this would be it. Jack couldn't help but let his eyes trail down her long, gorgeous legs that ended in bare feet.

"I'm all there." Sam- or rather, the vision of Sam, spoke again.

"You are." Jack decided being delusional wasn't really all that bad this time.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you, Jack." She turned and looked out over the pond, wistfully. "I knew it would come to this."

Jack gasped, feeling the touch of her hand and the brush of her hair as Sam swiftly reached over, took the gun and pitched it out into the lake where it sank with a very authentic splash.

"Sam?" _This isn't happening. She's not real. Please let her be real._ Jack took his legs down from the porch railing and sat up, staring at her.

"Jack." The breeze blew her hair into her face and she pushed it back behind her ear. Jack didn't think a hallucination would worry about being able to see- or be able to cry. "It's me." She reached down and took his hand in both of hers.

Jack looked at their hands, then at her face. "I'm not getting this."

"That is so- _you_. Jack." Sam laughed, her smile framed by tears. "Maybe you'll get this." She leaned over and kissed him, and he kissed her back, coming up out of the chair, following the feel of her lips until they were standing with his arms locked around her, pressing her to him until he was convinced, until every neuron in him understood, felt or believed it was really her.

"How?"

"Have you every heard of the theory of quantum suicide?

"Just the regular kind," he said quietly, looking out at the pond.

"Well, it's a little like an alternative reality. The theory goes, if a physicist sits in front of a gun…"

"I hate this theory already, Sam."

Sam picked thoughtfully at the buttons on his shirt. "Okay, if a physicist gets hit by a falling building…"

"That one isn't much better." He looked down at her hands, enthralled by the simple, familiar action.

"…there's another reality in which the wall doesn't kill her, you know that. So, because there's always this branching at each turning point her whole life long, theoretically this physicist may never die."

"Nice thought, but too weird." Jack looked out at the lake, the ripples from the gun finally lapping on the shore.

"Yes, but it's logically consistent. It's just that the odds of one reality happening eventually overwhelm the odds of the other." Sam explained. "It occurred to me while I was recovering that _everyone_, and I mean _everyone_, said I should never have lived." She paused. "Even you."

"I would _never_ say that," Jack whispered, his jaw tight.

"I saw your face, Jack. I looked in your eyes as I passed out. You didn't have to say anything."

Jack closed his eyes and remembered that moment- one he'd re-lived thousands of times in his head.

Dr. Keller, running in, literally sliding on her knees to get to Sam's side, tossing an IV bag at Ronan and ordering him to _Squeeze it Ronan, squeeze hard! _ as she jabbed a catheter the size of a soda straw into the side of Sams's neck and slightly larger one down her throat. Then Rodney coming behind her with O blood and Jack said she was O - but Keller didn't care, and the medics gently pushing Jack back said "_Don't stand in the blood, sir, it'll carry the current," _before they shocked her with the defibrillator which gave her one last heartbeat and then no more not a single beat more… but they kept trying over and over, with clamps and blood and fluids and shocks and drugs until Dr. Keller checked her bloody watch and said "1013" as she sat back with tears in her eyes.

"I couldn't get the concept of quantum suicide out of my mind." Sam looked out over the lake. "How many times have we cheated death, Jack?

"I lost count."

"Exactly. The doctors all thought I was depressed, but what I was doing was running calculations in my head. The probabilities of me being alive at that point were staggering. I knew the odds were overwhelming that the building killed me in another reality. _I should have died. _And if I died, then you …" Sam spun her wedding ring around on her finger. "A long time ago Daniel told me why you took that first mission to Abydos, Jack. So I asked you about it and you told me what you would do. Because you hold yourself responsible for everything, even things that aren't your fault."

The pain in her eyes overwhelmed him, but her words hit him like a blast of cold air. "You asked me about it. In some other reality."

Sam nodded, watching his face.

Jack dropped his arms from around her and grabbed the railing with both hands, turning to look at the pond in silence.

Sam shut her eyes. She had to get this right the first time, and fast. Taking a deep breath, she stepped up beside him, afraid to touch him. "From that point on I couldn't stop thinking about it. I started healing up. You went back to Washington and everything went back to normal, but I didn't feel normal." She forced a smile. "I used my recovery time to tap into the Asgard and Ancient data bases and I made a quantum mirror. It's not that hard if you know what you're looking for."

Jack turned to her with an alarmed and angry look. "Stupid move, Carter. Or whoever you are."

"I'll destroy it, don't worry." She ignored his last comment and pushed ahead. "I knew I was taking a chance that it would work out like Romeo and Juliet, but I guess I got here in time. I couldn't let you do what you were about to do."

"Why don't you just go back to where you came from? That was a perfectly good nine mil you just tossed in the pond."

"It turns out that I didn't come here just to stop you, Jack." Sam started to tremble and Jack could feel it but he didn't move to help her. "You're dead in my reality. Ba'al had one last Ashrak left. When you went back to Washington, he found you."

"I'm sorry." Jack said softly, finally turning to look at her. "Welcome to my world. Only, I'm not sure you're welcome."

Sam was afraid this would happen. She loved Jack so much that she could accept a perfect copy. He loved her so much that he couldn't.

Still, she had to finish what she'd come here to do in the first place, to convince him not to give upon himself . "I already knew that the odds were that I should be dead. Then Malcolm told me that the only way you would have lived is if you were here- the only place the Ashrak didn't know about."

Jack suddenly felt more sympathetic toward Barrett since their last encounter- but then he thought it might be proof of how different their realities were since Barrett evidently wasn't a complete ass in hers. He didn't say anything to her, but he didn't turn back to the lake.

Sam smiled slightly and continued her story. "So I reasoned that if I really _were_ dead, you wouldn't be in Washington, you'd be here- safe from the Ashrak, but not from yourself."

Without thinking, Sam rubbed the back of his hand. "Do you understand?" Jack didn't pull his hand away.

"Quantum mechanics are the dreams stuff is made of," he shook his head. "I'm not sure."

"My living caused your death."

They contemplated her words silently while the loon calls echoed across the lake.

"That's wrong, Sam. It- it just happened that way." Jack shook his head. "You didn't _cause_ anything."

"No more than assigning me to Atlantis caused the building to fall, Jack."

"That's different."

"No it isn't." Sam looked at him steadily. "If you can't believe that by now, after everything I just told you about odds and chance and causality, then I'm not in the right place. And don't act like you don't get it because I know better."

Jacks dark eyes appraised her, quietly. "Are you really Sam?"

"I am, Jack. My reality split in two- in one reality I died and in one I didn't. I have a month's worth of new memories since we last spoke. That's it." Sam looked at him. "Can you live with that?"

"I don't know. Hammond said some lines just aren't meant to be crossed." Jack recalled, thinking about a couple of other Sams he'd met. "Are you just here to fix a couple of fucked up realities? Because I don't want to be your science experiment, Sam."

"I'm here because I love you."

She took a C4 detonator out of her skirt pocket. "You're not going to kill yourself, now, are you? I really don't want to have you die on me twice." Sam's laugh was brittle. "It turns out our reality is not the only one of consequence, if you're the kind of person who thinks too much."

"Or loves too much." Jack was beginning to comprehend the extraordinary nature of what she'd done for him.

Sam's crystal blue eyes looked straight into his soul. "That's what you said when you found out what I was doing, right before you went through the Stargate for the last time. You told me not to forget to come back, but it was _you_ who didn't come back." Sam put her hand up to his face. "Jack, do I push the button here or from the other side?"

Jack covered her hand with his and closed his eyes, feeling something in the universe shift ever so slightly. He found himself being dealt yet another hand of cards, and wondered why Fate should really give a damn. He opened his eyes and nodded.

Something in the driveway blew itself to pieces.

Sam tossed the detonator into the chair and leaned up against his shoulder, "Oh God," she sighed, "Thank you, Jack. Thank you for trusting me."

"I always have," he put his arms back around her without hesitation, "but I should be doing the thanking."

"How about we call it even?"

"Even's good," he smiled for the first time in six weeks, "but this is better." He kissed her like he wanted to from the moment he saw her there on the deck.

Eventually Sam pulled back and laid her head on his shoulder. "Jack, I'm a little worried about entropic cascade, even though the realities only diverge by days."

"You had a Tok'ra funeral." Jack felt her grateful sigh as she kissed the side of his face and looked back up at him, running her hand over the hollow under his cheekbone.

"God, you're so thin, it even shows in your face."

"No home cooking, what can I say?"

"You never got any, anyway. Unless you count re-heating Chinese takeout."

"That counts if it's you pushing the buttons on the microwave." He smiled again, and Sam relaxed. It was going to be all right. He was going to be all right.

Jack kissed her again, with complete faith in her reality, although he felt compelled to run his hand down her left side.

"I'm all right. A few more scars."

"Just checking." He pulled her close. "Maybe I'd better check the other side, too. Just to be thorough." All those years of Sam in BDUs had given him an extreme fondness of her in a skirt.

"Maybe you'd better." Sam agreed, "Just to be thorough." The skirt was long, but the size of his hand allowed him to collect all the gauzy fabric until he could slip his hand underneath the hem without breaking away from her kiss.

"You need to get rid of these clothes." Jack murmured across her neck.

"I know, but I didn't want you to see me in hospital clothes. These old things were all I could find."

"Not what I meant." He smiled, scooping her off of the deck and carrying her into the house, finding strength he thought he'd lost forever.

Jack laid her down on the bed carefully. He studied her face, running his fingertips over her features as if the sight of her wasn't enough and she turned her head toward his palm, kissing the inside of his hand before it slipped down to her throat and under the neck of her shirt to her collarbone. He slipped her jacket off, and carefully unbuttoned her blouse, from the bottom up.

"God, Sam, this isn't a few more scars." He traced his finger along a path that circled around from her spine to just under her belly button. He tried to force back the tears, but a few dripped on the scar anyway, like some sacred spring water meant to heal them both. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there."

"You were."

"I don't remember." The anguish on his face nearly broke her heart.

"You should be glad, Jack. In that reality, I suffered. In this reality you did."

"Neither one of us had to see it, did we?" Jack touched her face, studying her eyes.

"No."

He resumed his careful inspection of her, trying to confirm that she was real and whole. Removing her blouse, he traced across her collarbone and down her arm to her fingers, noticing a bruise where she'd just torn out her IV. He turned her hand to see each side of it, and gently kissed her palm before moving to the other arm. Exactly when Sam couldn't say, but she became aware that his lips were on her skin too, brushing across every square inch of her that he gradually exposed, until all of her clothes were on the floor and her body was tense with desire. She found him in the dark and pressed the full length of her body against him. "I'm sorry."

"Sshh, Sam." He didn't want to hear any regrets. He already felt so damn lucky there was no way anything in the past could touch them now. Concerned about her injury, he gently rolled, pulling her on top of him, then brushed her hair away from his face. Scars or no scars, she was still so beautiful.

"Jack, I don't want…" the thought trailed off into a sigh as she was distracted by something sensational that involved her breasts and his hands. When Jack was sure he'd gotten the wheels in her head to stop spinning quite so much, he slowly slid his hands down, caressing her waist and carefully tracing the scar that saved his life. Then he took her hips and lifted her, moving in her and through her until she was sobbing sweet tears of relief into the sweat that ran down the tight sinews of his neck as his own explosive release swept away every thought except the knowledge that she was there.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Intense white light knifed into the windows of the little cabin while helicopter blades shredded the silence of the peaceful Minnesota night.

"God _damn_ it!" Jack cursed, slipping on his jeans and a shirt. "What is this, _War of the Worlds?_"

"I thought you didn't like science fiction." Sam yawned and looked around, spotting her hospital robe lying on the floor.

"Only the classics," Jack said with a grin. "Smartass." An insistent pounding came from the door. "All right!"

He threw open the front door, to find three Air Force personnel waiting on his doorstep.

Jack eyed the lead man's uniform. "Major... Emery, what the hell's going on?"

"Are you General O'Neill?"

"Yeah, who sent you?" Sam sidled up to him and he wrapped his arm around her. "And turn off the lights, for crying out loud!"

The men saluted and one of them signaled to the helicopter, which shut off its lights and powered down.

"General Moseley sent us at the request of General Hammond. Are you all right, sir?"

"Well, I was until you got here." Jack smiled at Sam.

Major Emery radioed in, "Tell him General O'Neill-

"And Colonel Carter," Sam interjected.

"and Colonel Carter are fine," the young man said, smiling at Sam. Jack sighed and wondered if there was an official reprimand for ogling a general's wife. If not, he was going to make one and Major Emery would be its first recipient.

"Yes, sir. I said Colonel Carter." Emery listened intently.

The Major's grin grew broader as he nodded, his finger to his earpiece. "Yes, sir. Yes, I'll tell them." He looked up.

"Does the word "Yee-haw," mean anything to you?"


	5. Incompletely Known Principles

There is a sharp break between the way that physicists characterize the world and the way that people usually talk about it. Yet all concepts and theories of causality, even those of modern physics, are only approximations to the still incompletely known principles of causation that govern the universe.

John F. Sowa

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"Well, what are going to do with you?" Jack asked, giving Sam a cup of coffee and gently sliding the folded newspaper out from under her fingers.

"I'm not sure." Sam smiled, pulling it back,

"You know, it was nice to have the paper to myself," Jack sat back, grinning, "but having you back beats that all to hell."

"That's so sweet, Jack." Sam smiled. "You still can't have it."

"Damn." Jack couldn't take his eyes off of her. Or anything else off of her, either, as Sam woke him up three times during the night to get one or another part of him away from her still-sore injury. Even now he had his foot on hers, not completely convinced that she wasn't too good to be true.

"What did George have to say?"

"He said he'll stay as long as I need him there, but that he can't do the job half as well as a "young cutter" like me." Jack sipped his coffee with a grin. "Landry's helping out. They'll be fine for a while."

Sam wondered if she'd always known that his eyes were exactly the same shade as a perfect cup of coffee, or if it took his death to make her notice those details.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing." Sam said, unconvincingly. She blinked a few times, concentrating on the crossword puzzle as if it were the Theory Of Everything.

"I'm not going anywhere, Sam. The Ashrak is dead." Jack said gently.

Sam jerked her head up. "What?"

"Yesterday some guy disguised as an officer made it through security, but guard near the elevator to my office didn't recognize him and stopped him. He killed himself." Jack took a drink of his coffee. "He had a hand device and some other stuff to use on me, though."

Sam's face went pale.

"God, Sam." Jack winced, "I'm such an idiot." He picked up her free hand. Not only had the Goa'uld assassin succeeded in killing him in her reality only days ago, she had damn near been killed by one, too.

Sam smiled thinly. "Jack, if we never talked about all the bad stuff, what would we have to say?'

"We could talk about when you jumped me in the locker room."

"How about when you kissed me in that time loop?" Sam watched his face.

Jack set his coffee cup down in surprise, spilling a little in the process. "How do you know about that?"

"You'd be surprised what people say when they think you're going to die." Sam chuckled to herself. "I have an awful lot on you now, _sir_."

Jack sighed. He was definitely in trouble. "Did I tell you everything we did in that time loop?"

"What do you mean?"

"Ah." He smiled. "I guess not."

"You liar."

"You that sure?"

Sam rolled her eyes and flipped the paper over to him and got up to get a refill, and as she came around the corner of the table, she abruptly fell against it, her cup shattering on the tile floor.

Jack kept her from hitting the floor and pulled a chair over to her. "What's wrong?" He eased her into the chair.

"This leg is still weak. Some times it gives out on me. I guess some nerves on that side were cut. I'm fine." She waved him away irritably.

"What are you supposed to be doing?" Jack was suddenly suspicious. "Where are your medicines, Sam?"

"I don't have any."

"As in 'I'm not taking any,' or as in, 'I don't have any to take'?"

"That."

"When are you seeing a doctor?"

"I don't know." Sam avoided his eyes. She had always played down her injuries and Jack had always known that.

Which was why he should also have known not to trust her. "Dammit, Sam! Keller didn't save so you could kill yourself. You don't know what you're supposed to do because you just walked out, didn't you?"

"I couldn't wait." She looked at him. "You couldn't wait."

Jack sat back in his chair, exhausted. "We're quite a pair."

"I have a list of medications. I copied it down while I was at the hospital in D.C. after your funeral." Sam said matter-of-factly.

"My funeral?" Jack hadn't even thought of that.

"I knew I had to use the mirror on Earth- I couldn't go through it in Atlantis- can you imagine? So on my way back I told the pilot I needed to see the cabin and that's when I left."

"Oh. That was sneaky, Sam. I had a funeral?"

Sam's expression hardened, her words honed with sarcasm. "Yeah, two days ago. Would you like to hear about it? It was very moving- you really should have been there. You're buried in Arlington- quite the honor, Jack."

Jack stared at her. For the second time that morning he wanted to hit the reverse button and take back what he'd just said. The thought of his funeral was surreal and mildly amusing to him- but she'd _lived_ it. Probably planned it. Somewhere in the now owner-less cabin in the woods of her reality there was a flag folded in a triangle, sitting on the mantelpiece. He'd been here, sitting on his ass, not doing one single thing except feel sorry for himself while she, alone and sick and scared… Jack inhaled sharply.

"You worked damned hard to find me, just like always- and you didn't even know what you'd find." It made him sick to think about what would have happened had she showed up even ten minutes later. Seeing him dead twice. "But, you didn't give up, did you, _not even when I was__ dead_?"

She shook her head.

"God, Sam." He pulled her to the edge of her chair and hugged her. "Why?"

"I wanted to hear you say I could push the button."

----------------------------------------------

"I'm going in to get your medicines- anything else you want?" Jack lifted his coat off the peg by the door. It was a warm day for spring in Minnesota, but snow lingered in the shadows of the house and under the towering trees, and a blizzard was definitely still a possibility.

"I'm coming with you." Sam looked up from lacing her boots.

"No, you're not. You're going to take a nap like Dr. Lam said." Jack ordered.

"No." She got up and took her coat from the peg.

"Why do I have to be married to a goddamn Air Force officer?"

"I don't know Jack. I ask myself the same question all the time." Sam kissed his cheek happily and walked out the door in front of him, humming. Jack followed her, not caring that he was grinning like a complete idiot, because he really couldn't remember that last time he felt this good.

He suppressed the urge to help her into the truck, slowing up a little so he could watch her get in without appearing to be watching her. When she easily slid in and shut the door with a secure thump, he walked around to the driver's side and climbed in beside her. Part of his concern was that no one really knew what was wrong with her. Dr. Lam wanted her at the SGC as soon as possible, but Sam was reluctant to leave. She just wasn't ready to explain, over and over again.

"Okay?" he asked, inserting the key in the ignition and starting up the rental truck.

"Fine." Sam smiled at his overprotectiveness. He'd always been that way and wasn't going to get any better, she knew. But she also knew there were scars on his body that should have been on hers, and for what seemed like the hundreth time in the last day, she thanked her lucky stars for a second chance. She never thought she'd find another man like Jack O'Neill, and she'd never been so glad to be wrong.

"I don't think I can go back to Atlantis, Jack." Sam watched the trees flash by like spokes on a wheel.

Jack agreed, but he'd put his foot in his mouth enough for one day. "Why?"

"Well, as I was trying to tell you last night," Sam turned her head to look at him, "When I was so rudely interrupted…"

"You didn't think I was rude at the time." He had his sunglasses on but Sam recognized that smug look, anyway.

"…I don't want to be away from you anymore. Not after that."

Jack knew exactly what she meant.

"And I don't think that the people there could really deal with it, Jack. They saw it all, didn't they?"

"Yeah." Now it was his turn to recall those agonizing days, starting with the screaming of the steel in the tower as it strained and cracked, ripping his life apart. Even though it seemed like it had all been undone, there was no erasing the jagged images that would still poke into his head and compel him to touch her or look at her- even if it meant he had to search the house until he found her.

Unlike when they brought her home, it seemed that there was a cast of thousands at her funeral. He was glad it had been in the most classified facility on the planet, or they would have needed a stadium to hold the crowd. "We loved her… so smart… so nice… she saved our asses, General…" Jack had felt as if he were in a hailstorm, each kind condolence leaving a stinging welt.

Her quiet voice ended his painful reverie. "I could go back to the SGC, I think. They've seen more weird stuff there than anywhere- they know about alternate realities."

"They've seen Daniel come and go a few times, too." Jack smiled. As he drove around a bend in the road, the truck hit a pothole and lurched. He immediately looked Sam's way.

Sam grabbed the door handle and winced. "I'm not field-ready, though."

"You're wasted in the field, Sam. You won't be reassigned there even if you were well. Not anymore."

"_You_ were there."

"See? My point exactly!"

Sam frowned at him. "Stop that, Jack." She looked back out the window. "I guess Area 51 looks like my best option, then." That was really fine with her- in fact she rather liked the place since it was there that she and Jack were finally able to get to know each other before he took off for Washington.

Which was an odd thing to think, considering they'd been worked together for eight years and married before she even arrived at Area 51.

"I could like it there. Really bad fishing, though." Jack looked straight ahead at the road. "Makes me kind of regret selling your bike, but I bet the stargazing is terrific."

"What do you mean?"

"You said no more being apart."

"I _meant_ I wanted to stay on earth. I don't even want to command a ship." She knew it was odd that she should think that just being on the same planet was "together," but considering their history, relatively speaking, it was.

"That's not what _I_ meant." Jack pulled into the parking spot in front of the drugstore and put the truck in park. He flicked off his sunglasses and turned to look at her. "We're going to live in the same city, in the same house and sleep in the same bed." Jack stated. "Unless I snore."

"You can't retire!" Sam had said it a hundred times if she'd said it once.

"Yeah, I can. I haven't been there for over a month and the world hasn't ended, has it?"

"It's just a temporary lull in the action." Sam was literally terrified at the thought of anyone beside Jack running HWS.

"Then you better get to work, Sam, so _you_ can run Home World Security." He smiled and kissed her before he got out and went in the little store, returning in a few minutes with her medicines and two cokes.

"Take them now." Jack handed her the packages and waited while she sorted through everything, then opened a coke for her. He wondered why, after everything they'd suffered through, she still thought it would be acceptable to go back to the way everything was before, all the traveling, the worrying and the nights spent alone. His dark eyes analyzed her face.

And then he figured it out. "You never gave up. That's what the difference is."

"What?" Sam took the coke and washed down the handful of pills.

"You had a plan. You never gave up- and you never gave up hope." Jack looked at her intently. "Did you?"

"No." Sam didn't understand what he was getting at. She put all the medicine bottles back into the store bag and set it on the floor.

"I did." Jack said quietly. "I never thought I'd see you again, ever. So when you came back, it was like a miracle. No- it _was_ a miracle." He caressed her face with the back of his hand, then turned her head so she had no choice but to look at him.

Sam was afraid to say anything. The look in his eyes was so intense, like nothing she'd ever seen before. Love and wonder strengthened by absolute certainty- and nothing could scare a scientist like absolute certainty.

"I'm not saying it wasn't all your work- it was. But even you being so freakin' brilliant- it's a gift. That's why people call you _gifted._ Get it?"

She didn't, but she nodded. Jack sat back in his seat, slightly frustrated that he couldn't help her understand what he felt- of course _that_ was nothing new- but this time it seemed more important. "Sam, it's wrong to blow a second chance."

Sam reached over and put her hand on his shoulder. "Okay, Jack. We won't."

He looked at her and sighed. "It doesn't matter if I don't make any sense. Do whatever you want, but you'll be with me. That's it. That's all you need to know." He put the truck in reverse, and backed up.

Two weeks later, they were parked in base parking at the SGC.

"Are you ready?"

"I don't know." She looked at the familiar entrance. "I've never come back from the dead before."

"Sure you have." Jack patted her leg. "It's just that not so many people knew it." They walked in and got to the elevators, stepping out on level 28 where they promptly ran into Siler.

"Jesus!" he exclaimed, dropping his wrench on the floor.

"No, just Colonel Carter," Jack said as he steered Sam around the astonished engineer and into the infirmary, where reluctantly left Sam in the very capable hands of Dr. Lam and headed up to Landry's office.

Lam spent an hour running tests and examining Carter, finally sitting her back down at the desk. "Well, bereft of any decent medical records," she glanced reprovingly at Sam, who shrugged sheepishly, "I'd say you're recovering well. You're anemic and most of the blood in you isn't yours, but that'll improve. You should be glad it happened on Atlantis, with Lantean technology. No one here could have performed a repair like that."

"They weren't supposed to." Sam said.

Carolyn nodded thoughtfully. "So you say." She paused. "You'll never be assigned to a front line unit again, Sam."

"I knew that." It was all right. Sam had enough of saving the world. She doubted they'd let her spend the rest of her life happily tinkering away at Area 51, or wherever she ended up, but right now nothing sounded better than playing in the lab and settling geek fights over whether gravity was _really_ a weak force or just spread through more than four dimensions.

Carolyn paged Jack to come down, and they went back up to the briefing room together.

It was the reverse of the last time anyone had seen her. The same group that helped her through the stargate two months earlier welcomed her home again, all in varying states of disbelief.

Teal'c in particular, seemed disturbed.

"Hey, Teal'c." Jack said, walking over to his tall alien friend. "You're not saying much."

"I seldom say much, O'Neill."

"True. But I think Carter here is feeling a little hurt because you haven't even said hello."

"I do not believe it is she." Teal'c paused, not wanting to hurt Jack. "They are different. The genuine Colonel Carter died."

"She did." Jack swallowed hard, and for a moment all the old feelings of despair and hopelessness flooded back. He looked at the gate. _It's wrong to blow a second chance._ "This is the Colonel Carter that lived, Teal'c. That's the difference."

Teal'c looked stoically over at the woman who looked, talked and laughed like his friend, the one he saw transformed into pure energy by the wormhole vortex. Glancing uncertainly at Jack, he walked over to where she stood talking with, or rather being talked at, by Rodney McKay.

"But how could you be sure? String theory dictates up to ten or eleven dimensions, most of which are infinitely tiny. How did you know you wouldn't end up in those?"

"I'm too big?" Sam answered, relieved to feel a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Teal'c standing there.

"Colonel Carter." He didn't smile, just evaluated her face carefully.

"Teal'c! I didn't think I'd get to see you so soon." Sam hugged him unreservedly, not noticing his expression several inches above her head.

"I did not think I would get to see you again." He returned her hug, a smile finally creeping across his face as he gently patted her back.

Jack smiled. If Teal'c accepted her, there couldn't be any doubt that she was the real thing. Not that Jack thought otherwise. He walked over and sat by Teyla.

"You'd better get home before we have to name that baby after Hank."

She smiled, "I'm fine, General O'Neill."

Jack studied her. "How did you know she'd be back?"

"I didn't." Teyla answered.

"You said our paths would cross again." Jack remembered her voice- the way she was so certain. He knew that what she'd said was no empty platitude.

"You have seen much of the universe, General O'Neill, have you not?"

"I guess."

"You have seen things that you would never have believed could be true."

"Yeah."

"Then you should know that some of the boundaries that are around us are simply how we perceive things to be." She smiled at him. "And I know Colonel Carter has experienced more than anyone has, General. You are both very determined people. I had faith."

Jack wondered again how it was that he lost his so easily.

The bottom of Teyla's shirt wiggled. Jack laughed. "I'd better let you take that call." He got up and found Daniel.

"Well?" He stood beside Daniel as they both watched Sam hug an astonished and grateful John Sheppard.

"You're the luckiest guy in the universe. But you knew that."

"We shouldn't have given up."

"I don't know about that, Jack. It's unbelievable." Daniel said, simply. "She changed how I look at my work."

"Huh?"

"Well, I've always studied phenomena that don't seem to yield to scientific analysis, but I always thought that's because our science just wasn't good enough. Even ascension." Daniel's brow furrowed as he thought, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets. "Or else I thought it was myth, stories that serve a cultural purpose. Now, I just don't know."

"Really Daniel, we should _all_ be dead." Jack pointed out.

"That's right."

"Carter would tell you we just got lucky when the gun went off."

"All of us? Over and over? What are the odds of that?" Daniel shook his head. "I don't buy it."

"Yeah. I don't buy it either." Jack nodded at Daniel then watched, smiling, as Sam approached them. "But right now, I don't really care."


End file.
